November Book Club: Souvenir by Aimee Suzara
from Wordtech
APRIL Book Club features are selected by Seattle authors and community members. This month’s pick comes from Michelle Peñaloza. MIchelle grew up in Nashville, Tennessee. She is the author of two chapbooks: landscape/heartbreak (Two Sylvias Press) and Last Night I Dreamt of Volcanoes (Organic Weapon Arts). Michelle is the recipient of fellowships and awards from Kundiman, 4Culture, and Hugo House as well as scholarships from VONA/Voices and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, among many others.
Aimee Suzara's mind excites me. I'm in admiration of the ambition of her focus and of the breadth of her ability to create connections across time and space. Her book of poems, Souvenir, is an intertextual collection that investigates the complex history between the US and the Philippines and the complex history of what it means to be a citizen of diaspora. Through the lens of the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis and the history of the US-curated "Philippine Reservation" that was an integral and large (47 acre site) part of the fair, Suzara brings together museum exhibits, artifact objects, pseudo-science, propaganda, multiple voices, and pop culture (hell yeah, Grey's Anatomy references!) to interrogate the legacy of imperialism and the ways in which we behold and are beholden. I'm excited to talk about this book with folks and excited that Aimee will be able to join us for our discussion! She will be in town teaching a class at Hugo House, and will be stopping by beforehand to join APRIL Book Club time and our discussion of Souvenir.
To learn more about Souvenir, read Carribean Fragoza's review on Souvenir from the LA Review of Books and Kenji Liu's review from The Rumpus.
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In November, the APRIL Book Club will meet Sunday, 11/8 at 11am at Little Oddfellows, the cafe in Elliott Bay Book Company. Order the book from EBBC now.










